ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART IV. 141 



hay, but a limited amount. "We don't undertake to load the ani- 

 mal up with an excess of bulky feed, but give sufficient bulky 

 feed to lighten the ration and put it in the best condition for 

 digestion. Tn addition to that, we always adopt the practice of 

 finishing our show steers for about sixty days on what we called 

 a "boiled dinner." We know that doesn't pay from the or- 

 dinary standpoint; that is, we find that we don't get any larg- 

 er returns for a pound of cooked feed than we do from feed- 

 ing uncooked feed ; but we do find that we are able to put a 

 little better degree of finish on our animals by it. And then we 

 feed roots. The average farmer doesn't consider it profitable to 

 feed roots, and in ordinary cattle feeding it would not be ; but 

 answering this gentleman's question, when you are feeding for the 

 grand championship you don't want to leave out anything that 

 can possibly make the animal a bit better, because, if you do, you 

 will find that the other fellow has put it in. If you go into the 

 game you have to go in to the limit, and to begin with, you have 

 to have the right kind of an animal; if you don't you had better 

 not start. There are a great many high-class animals that will get 

 pretty near the top, and not get quite high enough. It is exceed- 

 ingly difficult to get a load of steers good enough to get the grand 

 championship. Mr. Hall has been feeding for eight or ten years. 

 We purchased a steer out of Mr. Hall's load after they had been 

 sold and were on the way to the slaughter house. We fed him a 

 year, and he went back and won the grand championship ; but there 

 is very seldom a steer among a carload lot that is good enough to be 

 fed out and become a grand champion. The grand champion steers 

 are exceedingly rare. They have to be bred right, and they have 

 to be of the right type and quality; and then they have to be 

 carried on to just the right degree of finish with the utmost skill. 

 The same is true, of course, of the grand champion load. One of the 

 most interesting loads was the short-bred special. I don't know 

 of any bunch of cattle being fed for that length of time that has 

 been developed to the degree of ripeness that Mr. Federson's cattle 

 were this year, and if any of you people were in there, you will 

 confirm my statement. 



A Member: What was the length of the feed of that carload? 



Professor Curtiss : From the first of August, I believe. It is 

 about a ninety-day feed. It can't be over that. 



Mr. Wallace : To what extent is the exhibition of the individual 

 steers educational? In other words, in view of the way you have 



